Hard par/ Easy bogie

[Brian Hilko]

I love the roller coaster analogy! Pacing of the elements is so key on a great coasters. One of my favorite moments on a coaster is the massive drop in the middle of the raven. It sneaks up on you. It reminds me so much of the 14th at Pacific. After playing the incredible 13th you tend to overlook the 14th. It just sneaks up you. It is such a great hole that gets over looked.  That hole has been a tough par every time I have played it.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Niall,

While there is not one pat answer, I agree that batches of holes are just as good or better.  I would think three hard or easy ones in a row would be the limit.  Those hard stretches tend to come on the back nine when they occur.  It would seem that 10-12 would be better in terms of allowing a player who struggled there to get back in the match.

That said, the last tough 4 at AAC proved that a match can swing wildly, but not be fully determined over a closing difficult 4 hole stretch.  I would think a breather in the last 3-4 holes would be better 99 times out of 100.

I know a few clubs that by virtue of their routings, favor the fade all through the front nine and the draw through the back, and members tell of players who came back from well behind on the back nine, as the course obviously switched to their favored shot pattern.

Still, a course that closely alternated hard-medium-easy would seemingly tend to produce more back and forth matches that would hold our attention than courses where a difficult stretch just put one player too far out of the match, even if it didn't allow for a few great clubhouse stories.  And, obviously, only half the participants in a comeback match enjoy hearing that valiant story over and over again, whereas losing on the last hole doesn't bruise the ego quite so much.

[Bill_McBride]

I love the roller coaster analogy! Pacing of the elements is so key on a great coasters. One of my favorite moments on a coaster is the massive drop in the middle of the raven. It sneaks up on you. It reminds me so much of the 14th at Pacific. After playing the incredible 13th you tend to overlook the 14th. It just sneaks up you. It is such a great hole that gets over looked.  That hole has been a tough par every time I have played it.

Brian, to which "raven" do you refer?

I really concur about #14 at Pacific Dunes.  It's very easy to doze off on that tee; disaster lurks in the bunkers!

[Garland Bayley]

This may be a little out of the box….

I have often wondered whether the concept of “hard par and easy bogie” represents the low point of golf architecture.

Does it really have to? Is there something inherent in "hard par and easy bogie" that is indicative of the low point of golf architecture? I think not.

A flat rollercoaster has no appeal. One with a single big drop has some limited short term appeal. But a roller coaster with a series of interesting twists and turns gains our undivided attention and has us lining up to ride again and again.

Rollercoaster design is far more complicated than simply sticking a series of endless thrills together one right after the other until the ride ends. If we tried this approach we would simply leave the rider vomiting.

The real secret to rollercoaster design is the space between thrills. Rollercoaster designers understand the rider must be given the opportunity to “recuperate” before the next thrill. Designers know to the second how long it takes to lower the heart rate, not back to normal, but to a point where the rider is prepared for what is ahead.

I also like the rollercoaster analogy.

I used to think that the magical element of rhythm was an impossible concept to design, but lately I’m becoming more and more convinced that it just might be possible.

I think designers have to think more about juxtaposition. Every course needs a hole or two, or even a run of holes that become all about perseverance where a par is a celebrated score. In contrast I also believe it’s essential that every course should also have a hole or two, or series of holes where every player is thinking birdie. There should be clear cut moments where every player feels some freedom and others where you understand that only your best will do.

There you have it. You are talking about scoring, which is not necessarily golf as it was meant to be. It just seems to me it does not matter if every hole is hard par/easy bogey if you are playing traditional golf, i.e., match play. What does matter is the variety of problems to be solved. To a certain extent, the randomness of something like dunes land will take care of the variety. Look at the unusual variety of holes Tom Doak has put together on two different courses at Bandon. True, you probably wouldn't characterize them as being a majority of hard par/easy bogey holes, but it seems to me that a very good course could be put together that was mostly hard  par/easy bogey.

Most clubs spend a great deal of money making the hardest holes easier and the easy ones harder.

I would be interested if you have any hard evidence for this or if it simply is conjecture.

And yet no approach could lead to a more average and uninspiring golf course. They are following the concept of hard par and easy bogie to achieve consistency.

I don't get how "making the hardest holes easier" is following the hard par/easy bogey paradigm.

The net result is the golfer is never overwhelmed or at ease. This is golf without any thrills or reprieves. The concept represents the standardization of the game.

Yet this concept runs contrary to golf’s greatest attraction, its variety.

Again, I don't believe variety and hard par/easy bogey necessarily contradict each other.

What hard par and easy bogie does is remove any potential to develop the highs and lows that matter a great deal in a round. Golf needs its rhythms to make the experience special.

I disagree. Golf originally was meant to be played as a match. The highs and lows flow naturally from how you are doing against your opponent, and do not have to come from strokes. Par is an artificial concept. A 469 yard hole is a hard par 4, although may be easily bogeyed. If the tee is 471 yards, it is now a par 5, and it suddenly has become a hard birdie/easy par. Therefore, I believe this artificial distinction of hard par/easy bogey is not necessarily indicative of a "low point."

[Will MacEwen]

I love the roller coaster analogy! Pacing of the elements is so key on a great coasters. One of my favorite moments on a coaster is the massive drop in the middle of the raven. It sneaks up on you. It reminds me so much of the 14th at Pacific. After playing the incredible 13th you tend to overlook the 14th. It just sneaks up you. It is such a great hole that gets over looked.  That hole has been a tough par every time I have played it.

Brian, to which "raven" do you refer?

I really concur about #14 at Pacific Dunes.  It's very easy to doze off on that tee; disaster lurks in the bunkers!

Bill - #14 at PD is the toughest easy par 3 I have ever played.

[Greg Murphy]

I'm not sure I know what a hard par easy bogie hole is.

On a par 4, what comes to mind is a long tee shot to a defined landing zone followed by a long approach to the middle of the green (pin hunting being reserved for fools), followed by a relatively routine lag and two putt. Low handicappers will say, "Now that's a STRONG golf hole." Failure to execute won't be disastrous. It will just mean the next shot will only allow the player to get to where he/she "should have been" on the first shot, whether that be the middle of the fairway or the middle of the green.

Does that get it right? Another word to describe hard par easy bogie might be "the slog hole".

Though not thrilling, the slog hole can provide a break among other thrilling holes, just like an easy hole, but obviously a succession of slog won't add up to thrilling.

[Steve Kline]

To me Spyglass on the course and on the card has awfully good balance, with a number of scoring opportunities.

Mike,

But the game is not played on the card.

The vast majority of shots to all the fours are uphill to elevated greens after you finish the 6th.
While I can appreciate the “pressure” it exerts, it’s the exact same experience all the way in with only slight variations.
It's dull golf.

To add to that, the threes are all downhill over water on the back nine and the par fives all finished behind a pond (till Fazio made the change).

I found the course never changed the pace, it was a consistent call for execution after the first five..

I played Spyglass from the tips and found it very demanding. I don't recall many breather holes other than par 5 on the front with the pond. Other than that you had better be striping it from back there.

[Garland Bayley]

What are the techniques for building holes that are hard par/easy bogey?

Fronting bunkers and ponds?

Narrow fairways with penal rough?

Non-receptive greens.

Fairway bunkers pinching the landing zone?

Others?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Garland,

Good Question.  I have RTJ's book somewhere, but don't recall him ever specifiying what he did.  Probably, we have to assume that his work speaks the loudest as to what he thought worked.

I think it might change a little now.  For example, do subtle chipping areas make pars harder when you miss but bogeys easier for the average guy because while he might not chip well, he is not likely to leave three chip shots short vs leave 3 in the bunker?

RTJ didn't do a lot of non-receptive greens, but did tend to subdivide them cleverly into many sections.  Getting on and close is hard, but getting on a big green with a difficult long putt means a probable bogey.

He guarded most LZ well, but if you were short of them, there were few hazards, so if you were a short hitter, you played short of those, short of the green, wedged on and two putted for bogey, whereas the strong player dealt with numerous hazards all the way around while trying to make standard par.

[Kalen Braley]

I've only played one course to date that didn't have easy bogey holes....and that is the Idaho Club. With the long forced carries off the tee and narrow LZs, the course is still a brute even if you try to play super safe.

As a general rule though, pretty much any hole is an easy bogey hole....but only if you play it that way from the tee to start with.

For example they were talking about the 18th at AAC on TV and they said, the hole is easy if you just play it 7 iron, 7 iron, 7 iron and then two putt.  I reckon even a foozler like me could do that.  But if I played the course I would probably want to hit 3w off the tee and likely miss in the rough.  Then on the next shot it'd only go 100 yards.  Then feeling the need to make up I'd go for the green and splash it in the water, etc, etc.  Several shots later, I have a big number.

[Jason Connor]

the funniest thing about architect designing in the hard par easy bogey mentality is that they often wound up building courses that are:
easy for pros because of the lack of caracter of the course
and almost unplayable for the average guys because of the over-protected greens.

Agree.  If someone really wanted hard par, easy bogey, I would get rid of most greenside bunkers.  These aren't really hard for pros, but a bogey golfer in a greenside bunker in 2 is looking at double more often than a par.

It also annoys me that people tout hard par easy bogey AND advertise their tough slope ratings!  The fact that they don't even understand the contradiction speaks volumes.